Isabell Skeen, was born in Plain City, Weber County, Utah on May 20, 1889. She was the youngest child of Lyman Stoddard and Electa Philomelia Dixon Skeen. When she was two years old the family contracted scarlet fever. Her sister, Sabra Alice, died and eight days later her mother died, leaving a family of 10 children.
When mother was born, her brothers and sisters thought she was one too many in the family and wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Uncle Jode wouldn’t even look at here until one day when she was crying he went to the cradle and started to rock her. When he saw all the black hair she had, he thought she was pretty nice after all.
When she was three years old, her father married Annie Skelton and her step-mother came into the home. They had eight more children, 5 boys and 3 girls.
One of her closest playmates was Amanda Olson and they were together almost all the time. One couldn’t even go to the store without calling for the other to go with her. Her other playmates were Ella and Stella Hudson, Beatrice Cottle and Emily Richardson. The first beau she went with was Johnny Geddes. She thought he was about the best beau anyone could have. They used to go to skating parties and he taught her how to skate, then later to do fancy skating. Just below mother’s home was a pond which froze over during the winter and they skated there. They had a hill just above the pond and here they would take their sleighs to the top and slide down to the pond. When he moved to Oregon, Mother thought she never would find anyone else.
Along in the fall they used to gather weeds, leaves and twigs and have been bonfires. They would roast potatoes and play games around the fire. They had candy pulls and popped corn and made popcorn balls in the winter also. In the summer they had more work to do and didn’t have much time for play.
One Saturday afternoon mother was told to stay home, but she went skating anyway. While skating she bent down on her skates to go under a fence and fell and broke here collar-bone. She said this was the result of disobeying her parents.
She started school at the age of 6 at Plain City in a one-room schoolhouse at the south end of Plain City. When she was eleven years old, she attended the Wasatch School in Salt Lake. She had bad health and was staying with her sister, Electa, across from the cemetery in Salt Lake City. After finished the eighth grade in Plain City, she attended the Agricultural College in Logan, taking a course in Domestic Arts at which she was very good.
She was born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-ay Saints and was baptized at the age of eight in the canal. The exact date is not known as the ward records were destroyed by fire and no record had been kept in the home. She attended Mutual and Sunday School regularly. She was assistant secretary of the Sunday School and a Primary teacher in Plain City.
She was married 2 October 1907 to Thomas Etherington Charlton was was sealed to him on 12 February 1908. She is the Mother of 13 children, 11 of whom she raised to adulthood. After her marriage she remained strong in the church, serving in the Relief Society as a visiting teacher and a teacher and in other organizations. She enjoyed and was active in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and served in many positions including captain. She would go to the Salt Lake Temple regularly and has done endowment work for many people.
After her son Lyman died in 1940, mother was determined to have lawn on his grave at the West Weber Cemetery. Shortly after it was planted and started to grow, the well dried up. It was necessary to haul water to keep the lawn alive until the well could be restored. Mother, Edna, Wayne, Faye, LaMar, Elaine and I hauled water in ten gallon milk cans to accomplish this task.
She helped organize and start the hot lunch program at the West Weber School with Marcella Gibson. Many morning s she had to walk one and one half miles to and from the school in the cold and snow. At the beginning they had to make the hot soup and bread in the building behind the school, then carry it into the school and from room to room to serve it. A bowl of soup and a slice of bread cost 2 cents. She worked in the lunch program until World War II started, then felt it was her duty during the war to do her part in the defense of our country and went to work at the Ogden Arsenal in the ammunition department. She retired in 1949 because of poor health.
I, Elaine, remember as I was growing up how much I loved Mom and I never wanted to do anything to disappoint her. She was a wonderful mother. One time, as I was playing with my friends, we decided we would go swimming in the canal. When I asked mom, she said, “No”. When we left to go to Elaine Greenwell’s house I had no intention of going swimming in the canal but my friends coaxed me to go and I have in. Elaine loaned me one of her swimming suits and guess what? I stepped on a piece of broken glass and cut my big toe, which required stitches. Believe me, knowing I had disobeyed mom was much worse than lying on my stomach in Doctor Brown’s office getting my toe stitched up. I learned my lesson that day.
She remained close to her family. Growing up we remember going with her many times to visit Uncle Charles, to Salt Lake to see Aunt Ivy, and across the river to Aunt Mae, Uncle Jode, Aunt Jennie, and Aunt Noni (Lenora). Many times we would take the bus to Mesa, Arizona and stay with Aunt Lell (Electa). Sometimes when we would go through Flagstaff the snow would be as high as the bus.
In the summers Aunt Lell would come and stay with mom, and in the winter mom and some of us kids would go to visit her. Aunt Lell and she would take the bus into old Mexico and spend a week in a little coastal town by the ocean. They liked to bask in the sun and watch the people on the beach.
In November 1949, Elaine and I accompanied Mother to Aunt Lell’s in Mesa, Arizona for her trip with Aunt Lell to the Mexican Coast. It was a trip she enjoyed and looked forward to. It gave her an opportunity to visit and become better acquainted with her sister and give her a well-deserved rest and time away from her rigorous life routine.
The snow was deep and the temperature was well below zero in Flagstaff. We became extremely cold while we waited for the bus to be serviced and the heat in Mesa was very welcome. Mother always told us about Aunt Lell’s lemons being the size of grapefruit, but seeing is believing. We have pictures of Mom holding them in her hands to show who big they were. The grapefruit skin was paper thin and was sweeter than an orange. This was our first experience to travel with mother and was very enjoyable.
Mother made several trips to San Diego with Edna and Harold when they took LaMar back after a short leave while he was in the navy. She relates one time when they were in Barstow, California, the temperature was 110 degrees and Edna put some cold water into a thermos bottle, causing it to explode. She liked to travel and was always ready to go.
She has always helped her children and tried to teach them the right things to do. She believes in administering to the sick and has had many wonderful manifestations given to her. She has had a lot of sickness but has always been able to keep her home together. Her home was always neat and comfortable and was open to everyone. Many of her grandchildren spent time at her house in the summers. She could fix a feast out of almost nothing and many raved over her fried chicken. She was considered an excellent cook.
Isn’t it amazing how little in incidents in life will leave an impression forever. When Edna was small, the hired hand came across a nest of baby mice. He convinced Edna to hold her apron up and he placed them neatly in the fold. Edna took them into the house to show mother. She thought she was being a big, brave girl and was going to surprise and receive praise from her mother. A surprise she received, for when she opened her apron and mother peeked in, all she heard was a squeal. Mother’s reaction caused her to drop her apron and the mice ended upon the floor scurrying in every direct. When the mice hit the floor, mother mounted a chair while screaming. Edna went into hysteria. Mother’s phobia of mice left a fear on Edna for life. How could she live in a house of mice all her life? I guess the lesser of the two was a cat.
When I was around fourteen, I knew I could outrun mother. I was near the door when I was asked to do a simple chore. I became sassy. When she started to approach me I ran out the door and stayed outside for several hours. When it was lunchtime I went into the house. Everything seemed normal and I went about business as usual. I noticed she was maneuvering between me and the door. She soon had me cornered and let me have it full force. I think the thing that hurt me most was her disappointment in me. It was the last time that I should any disrespect toward here. The only time I ever saw her raise a hand was when Paul and Eugene would get into one of their “win or die fights” and she would get in the middle with the broom a-swinging.
Mother was the handy-man around the house. If any minor repairs were needed, she fixed it. A couple of young cedar trees were planted in the years. The livestock got out and one was stepped on and broken down. I was going to dig it out, by mother brought out the tape and three sticks and gave that tree her gentle touch. Let me say the tree today is over forty feet tall, over fifty years old, withstood the elements of nature, and is doing well.
Even when times were tough and money was short we never went anywhere dirty or with torn clothes. When we came home from school, we had to change into our oldest clothes. Mother would do the laundry, iron, mend and have our school clothes sparkling and ready for the next day. The boys shirts and girls dresses were made from flour or mash sacks. We didn’t mind because they were new. Mother was a thrifty lady.
Outside the kitchen window and by the back door, a honeysuckle bush was planted. In the summer it has dark orange trumpet shaped flowers on it. They are filled with sweet nectar which is a calling card for hummingbirds. Mother would continually watch and be fascinated in observing those hummingbirds as they darted in and back out of the flowers doing their nectar gathering.
Highlights of some of the trips we took with mother.
I had the privilege to travel with mother several times and it was always knowledgeable and pleasurable to be in her company. She was always ready to go and was never cantankerous. We learned a great amount of geography and biology from her. On one of our trips between Los Angeles and San Francisco, we were traveling along the Coast Highway. It had been a wet spring and a bridge had washed out. The road crew had dropped two trees across the chasm and laid cross pieces on them to make a temporary crossing. She refused to ride across in the car. She made Cheryl, Ruth and Edna get out of the car and walk with her to the other side while I drove the car across. I was appalled that she allowed me to drive the car across.
We went swimming in the Pacific Ocean several times, but could not get her to pin us. She would remove her shoes and let the breakers wet her feet as she waked in the sand, but that was as deep into the water as she would go.
We spent the night in Carmel, visited Aunt Alice and Uncle Charles in San Francisco, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, meandered through the Red Woods, walked through the giant sequoias, drove along the Oregon Coast through the rain forest, visited Depot Bay, rode the ferry from Astoria across the Columbia River to Washington State, and from Port Angeles to Victoria, Canada. We witnessed the changing of the guard in Victoria and were in awe of the famous Butchart Gardens. As we boarded the ferry at Nanaimo, she stood in amazement as the workers loaded a freight train below the passenger deck. When we departed to cross the channel she was enthralled with the picturesque beauty of nature as we traveled from Nanaimo to Vancouver. The scenery throughout Washington, along the Columbia and Snake Rivers of Oregon and Idaho were spectacular and more of nature’s beauties were enjoyed.
Cheryl, Ruth, Alice, Edna and Harold were also captivated by her pleasantness as we traveled the Western United States. She especially enjoyed traveling through the mountains taking in the grandeur panorama of the open spaces and closeness of the trees. She was fascinated by the gorges that were worn away by the forces of nature and the rivers as they cascaded and meandered to the valleys below. Her favorite place was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. She was also captivated by the wildlife found in the wilds, especially Yellowstone.
She traveled in the states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Arizona often. Mary and she went on a 21-day Church and American history tour and traveled through the eastern states. They went to Washington D.C., Boston, New York, went to the U.S. Capitol building, saw the Hill Cumorah pageant and Niagara Falls, both the American and the Canadian side. Mary say that Mom’s only regret was that she did not go up into the Statue of Liberty. She said there were too many stairs. They also went on a Temple tour to St. George, Los Angeles and Mesa. She went to Canada several times to Calgary, Lake Louise and Junior remembers when they went to Cardston she bought a set of Indian Chief and Indian Maiden salt and pepper shakers. On the way home she was looking at them and saw the ‘made in China’ label and he thought she was going to throw them out the window.
Andrew said that he could always have a good conversation with mom. She was well-read, and very knowledgeable on any subject. Going on a trip with mom was like taking an encyclopedia along, she could name all the plants and trees and knew all about the area we were traveling in.
During the war mother invited Lorna to live with us. She welcomed her as if she had been a daughter. She roomed with Faye and soon became one of us. She also had Lucille, Mary and Russell, Elaine and Ernie, and Martha share her home. Her home was open to anyone at anytime.
When Doralee was born on 5 February 1958, mother went to Burley, Idaho to assist Ruth and ended up staying a month. There was a close bond that developed between them as they were together often. When LaMar and Ruth moved to Utah, they came almost every Friday evening. Several would ask mom to go somewhere with her but the answer was usually an excuse. She anticipated their arrival and all LaMar would have to say is “Grab your purse and let’s go”, and she would be out the door for dinner at the Utah Noodle, grocery shopping or an evening out with them. When Lori Ann was a little girl, she often stayed nights with her great-grandmother. Mother mentioned several times how she appreciated them.
In 1960 LaMar and Ruth went to get Alice, Erma and Andrew in New York as Alice was returning from her mission in Finland. They invited Mother to go with them and she gladly accepted. It was off to Burley to leave Doralee and Lori Ann with their Aunt Mabel and eastward bound, they were on their way to the “Big Apple”. Mother was not paying close attention and waved to a mechanical Indian standing at an entrance of a service station. LaMar witnessed this through the rearview mirror and teased her about it often. Mother would hesitate ordering at a restaurant until LaMar ordered and then would order the same. She said that he always knew best. They spent the last night on their way home in Denver, Colorado. Morning arrived to a blizzard. Erma did not want to travel in it, but LaMar said they would be okay. Mother calmly answered that if LaMar says it will be okay, it will be. After a few miles the weather abated and they arrived home in safety. She enjoyed the experience immensely and talked about their consideration and hospitality often.
She appreciated the beauties of the United States and really enjoyed herself and she traversed the country.
She had high standards and wanted each of us to receive a proper education, so we were expected to attend our school classes each day. She told us that if we got in trouble at school, we would get it double when we got home. She was a good example to us and taught us to be conservative and treat everyone with respect.
She was a kind and gentle woman giving us all a good background in the Gospel, making sure we attended our church meetings. She was loving with us in her discipline but strict. She never complained or raised her voice.
Some of the grandchildren have related memories of Mom and we have included them:
LaMar Gibson, Grandson
It is a great pleasure to write my thoughts and experiences with my Grandma Charlton. With my being the first grandchild and staying there so much grown up, I always thought I was her favorite, but every grandchild probably feels the same. She made each one feel that way.
With my being the same age as Wayne and Junior, especially during the war years, I almost lived there in the summertime. She seemed to always have room for one more. She could always have a good meal with almost nothing. I’ve always been amazed at her pushing for an education, especially for those times. My mother tells how she would walk down to Dance’s corner to go to Ogden and Weber High. Grandma encouraged mother to play the piano.
Grandmother wrote to me many times when I was in the Navy. I think she was the prettiest writer I have ever seen.
After knowing the family she raised during hard times, and talking with the ones that knew Lyman and worked with Eldred and how good they were, an knowing how good and honest my mother was, I know my Grandma was a great lady. I’ve always thought I had the best grandma in the world, and I believe it was true.
Some of my experiences with here were many, but may I relate a few. When I was in the third or fourth grade, I started to stutter really bad. I wouldn’t go to school because I was embarrassed. Mother didn’t know what to do, so grandma said she would take me in to see Dr. Brown. I just remember him talking to me for a few minutes and I stopped stuttering. I have always been grateful.
One summer during the war, Junior and Wayne were the farmers, just young kids and I stayed and helped (which probably wasn’t much help) but at the end of the summer grandma gave me a beautiful Bulova watch for my pay. I was so proud of that watch because not many kids had them at that time and thinking back, I don’t know how she managed that, because she didn’t have much money.
When I was in the navy, the ship I was assigned to was coming back from Korea. It was routine back then to have the ship that was coming back dock right by the street. When we docked, I came off that ship and was surprised that my mom and dad, and bother grandmas were there waiting for me. I’ll never know how they got there, but it was very special to me.
The older I get, the more I realize what influences some people have on others lives. I do know my grandma was the big reason for the good family she raised. All you have to do is look at each one and you see her strengths.
I hope someday I can be where she is and tell her how great I think she is.
Dennis Thurgood, Grandson
Most of my early childhood memories revolve around time spent on the farm at Grandpa and Grandma Charltons. Most of my time was spent tagging after Wayne and Junior, harvesting hay, peas, grain, tomatoes, milking cow, riding horses and going to baseball games.
When harvesting hay I got to ride on the mower, hay rake, hay wagon (all horse drawn), riding the derrick horse to pull the dump fork up into the barn was always a highlight. We also spent much time tending the irrigation water day and night. Meal time was always a great event with plenty of good home cooked food (not from a box, package or can) as grandma was a great cook. she always had a faint smile and soft words that made me feel welcome and at home. The best seat in the house was on the cook stove after the heat to cook the food had cooled down.
Bed time was another event between Wayne and Junior in the back bedroom, through the bathroom. As a little kid, sleeping in a double bed, there wasn’t much room. I went to sleep many nights listing to the Ogden Red’s baseball games.
Ron and I caught a mouse and had great fun chasing Grandma, Mom and others around and out of the house. Boy, they did not like mice or little boys with them.
Of all the things I did on the farm only once did grandma discipline me, and I sure had it coming. The Hipwell boys and I were over the river in a cornfield, running the horses down the rows of corn and breaking the stalks down. The farmer saw us and came chasing after us to catch us, but we went back over the river to home, think we had gotten away. Well, think again! When we rode into the barnyard Grandma was waiting by the water trough, and gave me the word, “grounded from the horse”. The farmer had recognized Old Tex and called grandma. We never went back in that cornfield again.
Grandma never said much, but, in her way, I knew she loved and cared for me very much. She will always have a special place in my heart, thoughts and life, as she provided many memories of life on the farm.
Pat Nye, Granddaughter
I remember the Thanksgivings spent together as a family at grandma’s house. A turkey dinner with all the trimmings was enjoyed by everyone. My favorite dinner at grandma’s was her famous chicken with homemade noodle soup served over mashed potatoes.
I remember Robert and me staying with grandma and grandpa when my mother was ill. The fun I had as I would crawl upon the old feather bed and nestle in its soreness. Many Sunday afternoons our family would go to grandma’s and visit and I remember all the fun times I had with grandma, playing with my cousins, and also grandpa’s black licorice.
When Grandma was ill I stayed with her overnight in the hospital. I had three small children and Grandma said, “Patty, you don’t need to be here with me. You need to be home with her children.” I replied, “Grandma, I want to be here with you. The children are fine. Mike is with them.” I will always cherish that night and the time I spent with her.
I remember Grandma being like grandmas should be. She was soft, gentle, loving, quiet and very sweet.
In the spring of 1962 she went on the train to visit her granddaughter, Alice who was teaching school in San Jose, California. While she was there she became ill and never regained her health. She passed away June 22, 1963, in the Dee Memorial Hospital of heart failure and was buried in the West Weber Cemetery.
She was our Mother and we appreciated and lover her dearly. As of August 2003 she had 358 direct descendants.
Her motto was: Give me the patience to accept those things which cannot change. The courage to change those things which can be changed. And the wisdom to know the difference.
